Rian Johnson has a big hole to dig Luke Skywalker out of.....

This dilema with Luke's character is something that JJ and Disney should have thought about long before they considered adding the OT cast to TFA. Why do it in the first place when you know that fans are just going to go bonkers over their childhood heros and that these will overshadow the new cast when this is something even a child would know? It would have been better then to leave the OT cast out in the first place than giving them such sucky rolls and even killing one off in such a dumb manner. I haven't waited years to have Arnold Schwarzenegger appear in a new Predator movie just to finally get one and suddenly have to deal with Arnold being 3 minutes in the movie and doing nothing because the movie's hero is Jack Black! Even if they like it or not and even considering the mediocre role that Luke had in this movie, TFA made him a central player by being Kylo Ren's uncle and teacher. It's going to be even more damaging to Luke's character if he just trains Rey to go clean up his mess knowing that Kylo is his responsability and not Rey's. We are talking about the same man who betrayed him as both a mentor and as family, killed his students, was part of the destrucction of five planets and personally murdered both Lor San Tekka and Han Solo in cold blood. To deny this and let Rey be the one to handle this mess when it is clearly Luke who should do it is going to be far worst than having TFA be just a copy/paste of ANH, killing Han in such a lame way and having Luke just be in the movie for a few minutes and just look constipated and say nothing.

 

We all know he was in hiding while waiting on Kylo to finish infiltrating the First Order under guise of the Dark Side. Hehehe

 

Great post..

 

The problem they have with Luke's absence, although explainable 'in-universe', will forever be a problem in the mind of the viewer.
What I mean by that is they could say:
1. Luke is in exile to further his training.
2. Luke is in exile out of grief.
3. Luke is searching for something that will defeat Snoke.
4. Luke is trusting in the Force to call him when the time is right.

That is all fine and dandy but at the end of the day Luke sat back and did nothing whilst:
1. Billions of people died.
2. His best friend was killed by the boy his trained.
3. His sister's life and that of the resistance was under serious threat.
4. The future of the Jedi Order (and maybe even his daughter though I think not) was close to being eliminated.

What's more, if it turns out Luke deliberately left breadcrumbs then his self imposed exile makes even less sense when all that sh** was going down.

On top of this you have the fact that Luke's self-pitying behavior goes against what we knew of the character and how he developed in the OT. Yes, people can change and go backwards. But this is a mythological tale. Luke has already gone through the heroes journey and came out the other side. It makes no sense for him to go back a few stages and do it all over again. It does nothing for his character or the saga's mythology as a whole.

The only way they can write themselves out of this is by:
1. Luke being stranded on Skellig - and his grief is actually partly about being stuck and unable to help his friends.
2. Luke's connection to the Force being greatly diminished for some reason and he must protect his knowledge so he can pass on what he learned to a more able/powerful Force user.

Anything else goes against his character IMO and isn't justification for not being around when his friends suffer and die.
People keep going on about how Yoda and Kenobi went into exile for 20 years and that perhaps Luke is doing the same.
I don't buy that. Yoda and Kenobi knew that the only people who could get close to the Emperor would be the twins. They then expected the twins to destroy Vader and the Emperor. The Empire no longer exists. The Republic is back. Luke has the republic and resistance at his calling.
What's more, in ANH what would Kenobi have done if Luke didn't help him out? Sit back and watch the Rebellion be crushed? No, when called upon and when he could be useful he would've helped out.
However, like I said, this self imposed exile to trust in the Force could be what they use. But again, it just makes Luke feel cold - something that put a lot of people off the Jedi from the PT. I just don't think Luke Skywalker would abandon his friends like that. It wouldn't add up to me...


...having said that, an awful lot didn't add up to me in TFA.

 

I read this too somewhere. Every time Luke came into the scene it was like, "What will LUKE do?" & they needed more time to build the new characters.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 3, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 3, 2016 ---

I hope you're wrong :-(

It does make sense though..

 

It's simple, we don't know why he left or what he's been doing. So until we find that out, I make no judgments. And if people aren't patient enough to wait to hear his side, well than that's on them, not the film.

Also lets not pretend that people wouldn't have complained to the heaven's if the OT cast weren't here.

 

Someone has to train Rey, if Luke is indeed the last of the Jedi. As well as he's in exile at the location of the first Jedi Temple. So possibly there's things he's learned about the Force that haven't been seen before and can help in destroying Smoke. Just as it seems Kylo has learned things that are different for the Dark Side.

Point I am making is that Luke has to go into exile because without him the Jedi go extinct if he is indeed the last one and the Dark Side ultimately would end up winning ... and I speculate the last Sith in Snoke has his way.

 

Hey Luke did you watched ANH recently, well Episode VII is like...the same alot

 

Luke Skywalker is telling Rey about how he joined the resistance and Rey is like, " *YAWN* been there, done that..."

 

I believe the problem viewers have with the way Luke was portrayed in TFA is that it undermines the extreme love and loyalty all the heroes of the OT had for one another. They were such a tight knit group in the OT so it was just bizzare seeing how they were so estranged and distant from each other. Leia not consoling Chewie after Hans death like he consoled her when she Han was being frozen just did not seem right. They just walked past each other like they were strangers. Also the fact Han did not even get a Memorial, Plaque, Carbonite statue or just few words honoring his sacrifice just did not sit well with me.

 

Yes, there simply wasn't enough backstory and not enough new story. It's kind of in neutral.. Episode 8 will be the decider of the whole trilogy.

 

Did anyone even know he died though besides Leia immediately when he happened ?

 

too many assumptions in the OP.

all we know is Luke's Jedi school was destroyed and he left, possibly to find the Jedi temple.

we don't know that anyone was killed, we don't know Ben did it, and we don't know Luke's motivations for vanishing, whether he sees or knows the future, or whether he could actually do anything to stop the rise of the First Order.

so no, it's not a hole that needs digging out. until we know what's really going on, it's simply a matter of "hey, Luke, I'm Rey and the galaxy is gone to shyte; will you come back and help us?"

Luke's expression is pained there at the end, so he has suffered and possibly doesn't want to suffer more, but that doesn't make him a quitter.

 

No idea what you mean with, we the fandom, I can only talk for myself.

I consider it out of character because I saw the OT and how everything Luke did was caring for his friends and family, but the really important part is that Luke won, Yoda and Kenobi lost. Yoda and Kenobi tried to look over Vaders twins, well Kenobi at least, to maintain hope in the hour of defeat and the following years, which is embodied by Luke and Leia.
It was put on film, you can look it up, Yoda and Kenobi TRIED and they LOST, so they escaped. Yes i think we call it escaping, not just hiding.
As far as i can tell there weren't any friends of Kenobi or Yoda alive, real close friends i mean.

Now you are saying Luke lost too, against Kylo and Snoke. Well perhaps, or yes it seems so, i only have Han Solo's word for that at the moment. Even if all that turns out to be the case, it is not changing the fact that Luke defeated the Empire and Yoda and Kenobi lost.

I think the next argument will be Luke is now Yoda(Yoda was disappointed with himself and hid elsewhere), well throughout the whole six movies Yoda and Luke are pictured as completely different character types, as well as Kenobi. There is no ground for an argument here really.

Or do you think Yoda, Kenobi and Luke are one and the same character type? Well, if one only sees movies with the character development of TFA, perhaps one could reach that really strange conclusion.

 

It's only a "hole" for a small minority of fans who rushed to judgment, engage in knee-jerk pessimism, and cannot be bothered to wait to get any form of context before assuming the worst. Thankfully, form what I've seen, most people AREN'T like that, so Disney ain't all that concerned (nor should they be).

 

i have to post just so i can like the above post.

edit: aaaargh i still don't see the buttons.

 

I am sure it will be ok...

 

If the fact that Leia didn't interact with Chewie after Han's death is not a reason to be pessimistic, then I really don't know. Had Chewie killed Ben Kylo Ren for murdering Solo, I could have understood their lack of interaction, but that wasn't the case.